"Most Impractical Weapon Design of WW II?" Topic

What in the opinion of the learned community of T.M.P. was the most impractical weapon design ever developed and used during World War II? No theoretical weapons like the Habakuk (did I spell that right?) but actual weapons which saw combat – even if in only very small numbers. Dig deep into that 70 year old bag of military trivia and come up with some good ones for all our amusement and education.
Rod Robertson

How about the antitank pistol the Germans made, based on their flare pistol? It was called the "kampfpistole" and it fired 26mm grenades (Wurfgranate Patrone 326 Leuchtpistole). It contained a charge of 1/4 oz. of TNT. The pistol had a folding butt stock and a bubble-leveled sight. Absolutely worthless against armor, unless you could sneak around behind an SU76,maybe.

The Boomerang hand grenade used by the aussies. LOL

Only an Aussie would come up with a returning hand grenade -they are glutons for punishment! But seriously folks!
The Anti-tank pistol is good, but is it any less odd than a tiny panzerfaust? How about Gas masks for the protection of tracking dogs.
Rod Robertson.

No seriously please see link i particulary like the GUSTAV Railway gun Impractable because it could only fire in the direction of the tracks.
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I think the aerial mine.

All the best,

John.

I'd like to offer the Holman Projector as a serious contender. An AA weapon common on RN coastal craft, designed to launch a grenade at aircraft. Almost completely useless in its intended role, it scored few kills (although IIRC one did manage to black out Harwich by lobbing a grenade into an electricity substation). Eventually found favour amongst MTB and MGB crews for shooting potatoes at each other's boats.

PS The wikipedia (lol) entry makes it sound quite a decent weapon, but my more detailed reading of coastal forces actions tends to paint a rather more bleak picture :)

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Some of these are great

potatoes ha ha ha -that's made my day!

The Gustav and Big Bertha guns were certainly hard to move but they did do a number on Sevastopol and other cities if memory serves me correctly. The Davey Crockett Nuke Launcher reminds me of stories of a French Nuclear hand grenade from the late fifties or early sixties but I am not sure if that is real or apocryphal. But I digress from the WWII time theme and I apologize!
Rod Robertson

Has to be the Russian anti tank dog for me.
It's often said that one of the major problems was that they were trained to run beneath 'Tanks' rather than 'German Tanks' so if any friendly AFVs were in the area they'd be as likely to run under them.
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German Tanks – in general – the King Tiger, Jagdtiger, and Sturmtiger in particular. Over-engineered, gluttons for resources, prone to break downs at every turn, fuel guzzlers when fuel supplies were short, and utterly unable to keep pace with mobile warfare. All were largely marginalized by mobility and simply over-running their supply lines – forcing them to be abandoned or scuttled by their crew.

As you said – impractical – these three monsters – like the MAUS were impractical and they saw combat, were not particularly effective in what they were intended to do. Intimidating, yes, able to destroy Allied equipment, yes, but impractical because they consumed too many resources at a critical time and those resources could have been used in other areas to a much greater impact – making them impractical.

I have often thought this Jovian the germans should have concentrated on a fast efficient Tank that could be mass produced rather than develop these oversized fuel gusslers the tiger 1 was awesome enough and they should have concentrated on mass production of these. That said allied air superiority would have seen them off in then end.

"Krummlauf" barrel for the MP44 assault rifle.

You know, the one that let you shoot around corners, complete with reflecting mirror sight. Ridiculous.

w.

I'm a big fan of the Blacker Bombard for awards like this….

The Author of this "5 Incredibly impractical military weapons" knows nothing of what he talking about. He has taken every weapon out of context, and in some cases just made stuff up.

The Davy Crockett fired a sub-kiloton fission device, which the blast area was far far less then 1 mile, in fact the most dangerous part of the weapon was that it irradiated a area of about a half mile with lethal radiation that would last about 48 hours. It was test fired several times with a live crew, so the author's idea that it would kill the people launching it is totally wrong.

The impracticality of the machine guns I won't touch on but again, a lot of what the author calls gross impracticality is because he has taken the expected use of the weapons out of context.

His criticism of the rail gun seems on track, except of course he fails to mention the RANGE that the rail gun has, and again he has taken the weapon out of context. The gun had a range of 23 miles, far enough away that tracks could easily be laid down out of sight of the bunkers. The real kicker is that the guns were only intended for a certain set of bunkers along the French Maginot Line and were never intended to be used on anything else. This was all pre-war, so the tracks would be laid down long before hostilities were going to be started. Of course the Germans came up with a better plan which was just ignore the whole line in the first place and go around. It is known that Hitler watched one demonstration of the Rail gun and was so impressed with the fire power, he ordered that the weapon could only be used with his express permission.

Lemat Pistol. He is so far off with the Lemat pistol it's not funny. For one thing, pistols are never your primary weapon in ANY WAR, you use your rifle. So the idea of a soldier desperately trying to get the right ammo into the gun while under fire is just wrong, it never happened, with any type of pistol. The Lemat pistol was intended for use by mounted troops, who went in for hit and run tactics. Far from being impractical, they were actually were very popular. Oh, and the reload problem? The normally wore several pistols and would just pull a fresh pistol when they used up the ammo in one.

My top list (couldn't decide on a single one):

1.) Italian 45mm Brixia mortar: excessively heavy and complicated weapon for its task. Give me a British 2" mortar instead any day!

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2.) UK Home Guard Blacker Bombard (anti-tank spigot mortar): weapon that was so impractical that even the British army rejected, leaving the Dad's Army as the proud recipients.

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3.) UK Northover Projector: another jolly British anti-tank weapon from the early war, this time lobbing incendiary grenades using black powder charges detonated by a cap from toy pistol! At least it was lighter than the Blacker Bombard, but the annoying tendency of the grenades to break in the breech must have made the crew a bit nervous.

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4.) Soviet Ampumolet: if you thought the Northover Projector was ricky enough, try the improvised Soviet version, this time using a black powder charge to launch a glass sphere filled with incendiary liquid! I would have immediately granted the title of Hero of Soviet Union for anybody willing to crew one of these in combat.

5.) German 37mm anti-tank gun with the HEAT rounds: the original 37mm gun design was otherwise pretty sound, but it soon became useless against thickening enemy armour. Thus somebody decided to attempt to prolong their useful lifespan by issuing them with massive, short-ranged, muzzle-loaded HEAT rounds. I wouldn't want to be tasked with loading one of these under combat conditions – especially if it happened to be mounted on Sdkfz 251 half-track!

6.) Japanese 20mm anti-tank rifle: just in case the recoil was not hefty enough, they developed this weapon to be fully automatic while using 7 round magazine! And even though it was heavy enough to require four men for transportation, somebody decided to also design an optional gun shield for it to add some extra heft. At least it did not have a bayonet added!

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7.) Japanese LMG with bayonet: while one might think that squad automatics would be best used for laying covering fire, the Japanese decided that it was a jolly good idea to add in a bayonet mount so that the gunner could fix in a sword bayonet and join in a good old banzai charge!

8.) UK Royal Navy Lancaster SMG with sword bayonet: to provide them with a handy weapon for close-in action, RN boarding parties were issued with Lancaster SMGs. To ensure that they were not too handy, they had a bayonet mount for attaching a spiffy looking sword bayonet that would probably double the lenght of the gun. But it probably looked very good on a parade ground!

The Brits and Germans seemed to have cornered the market in WWII on odd weapons, used or just built to see if they'd work.

However, the Japanese balloon bombs sent to set US forests on fire (actually used) and the US plan to use bats to set fire to Japanese cities (not used) rank well up there also.

Dan

The British Panjandrum comes to mind, as an effective mine-clearing device, propelled with rockets.

Not sure it was ever used in combat, but looked to be quite dangerous to those observing the test runs.

Aerial bombing of "flying" aircraft seems pretty impractical to me, although I believe at least one American heavy bomber was damaged, or destroyed using these tactics, by the Germans.

Indian troops successfully used the Blacker Bombard.

My candidate would be Mr. Churchill's "Cultivator #6", aka "Nellie":

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Allen

Jovian has the right of it I reckon – how many extra Panthers could've been produced instead of the fuss and resources put into the King-Tiger and it's variants!?

Most french tanks (not the somua 35) and most French generals, Gamelin as a serious number one.

I always think it is a unfair on most of the weapons you see in 'useless inventions' lists (indeed many such inventions). A lot of it is you have to try everything to find out what works- look at the scepticism of the DH Mosquito, the bouncing bomb, Hobarts Funnies.

Don't forget the firebombing bats by the good ol' US of A.

Didn't Japan use bombing ballons? I think it killed a cow in Canada.

I nominate the Fucile Mitragliatore Breda modello 30

Whoever came up with this probably loathed soldiers with a passion.

So they designed a weapon that makes the Chauchat feel like a proper weapon. It has a 20-round magazine that is permanently attached to the weapon. You have to load it with stripper clips. They found out that the the feeding mechanism caused jams so they put in a little oil pump to lubricate the bullets as they went into the weapon. It worked fine on the shooting range, but in the desert it clogged with sand and in Russia it would either be full of mud or the oil would freeze.

Not only that but the rocket scientist who came up with this weapon figured that just throwing away the empty cartridges would be wasteful and every empty casing was inserted back into the magazine, so soldiers had to dig out the casings before they could reload the damn thing.

It didn't have a carrying handle, it was an awkward, clunky unreliable piece of junk and had a tendency to cook off ammo …

The Japanese balloon bombs did manage to kill a small number of civilians, but this was kept secret until after the war. The Japanese never knew what effect the balloons had.

IIRC, the Germans came up with a last-ditch "Volksgewehr", essentially a cheap version of the Mauser 98 rifle, made mostly from pressed metal. Rather than have lugs holding the bolt in place, they used the actual bolt handle resting against the sheet metal frame as the only thing from preventing the bolt from entering your skull when it fired …

One just has to wonder how some of these things made it past whymsical idea mode, to actual manufacturing.

I think the krumlauf gewehr was not the brightest of the Germans inventions…

(As mentioned before by "wehrmacht")

I think the homeguard type weapons should be exempted (blacker bombard, Northover projector) as their real purpose was to give men judged unfit for military service something to stand around that looked slightly dangerous. This would then force the invading german army to come to a halt whilst they destroyed said piece of equipment and killed the men standing near it.

The purpose of the Home Guard in an invasion was to get in the way and allow the real army time to deploy where they were needed most. And the Home Guard knew this as well as anyone – and if that's not bravery I don't know what is.

In the category of tanks, I submit the Grant and Lee designs, due to their WWI-style sponsons for the heavy guns.

I'm inclined to agree with the nomination of the Breda 30. With some of the crazier weapons its "this or nothing" or even "worth a try" but if you wanted to make a decent LMG all you had to do was license any of a number of acceptable designs.

20th Maine – I agree on the Northover, but the Blacker Bombard was intended for (and indeed issued to) regular troops too – I've even seen claims of a kill in North Africa, although it must've taken balls of steel to calmly lie by one waiting for a panzer to get close enough for a shot….

"Italian 45mm Brixia mortar: excessively heavy and complicated weapon for its task."

And what was its task?

Certainly not the same as a british 2 inch mortar!

For the Blacker Bombard and the M3 Medium, it's really their legacies that count. The Blacker was the ancestor of the PIAT, and shows that a bit of miniaturization and some little improvements can go a long way.

The M3 Medium was meant as a stop-gap measure. The British wanted a 75mm turret, but American engineers hadn't figured out how to make such a turret, so they put it in the hull for that model. Soon they got their breakthrough, and out came the M4 Medium.

The Long Aerial Mine – an explosive charge towed behind a Douglas Havoc Mk. 1. The concept was that the aerial mine would be flown into the path of a German bomber and explode on contact.

Also mounted on the Havoc Mk. 1, the Turbinelite searchlight was bright enough to illuminate target aircraft for companion "killer" airplane, but the light itself drew enough aggro that the pilot of the unarmed Turbinelight aircraft could be encouraged to be elsewhere.

Wyatt

The Defiant as a day fighter---Heavy turret with no forward arc……Got slaughtered…

Also the Fleet Air Arms turret fighter--The Roc--Really really slow with the same disadvantages as the Defiant…And the experimental float plane veriosn with a top speed of about 150mph--Urrgghhh….

I'm with wehrmacht and paintingbird – lots of silly weapons, but a rifle that shoots around corners has to take the cake.

I killed a tank with a Blacker Bombard in a Flames of War game once.
My Sikhs loved it.

I don't know if anyone ever thought the Sticky Bomb was a GOOD idea… More of a "desperate times call for desperate measures" thing.

The Defiant as a day fighter---Heavy turret with no forward arc……Got slaughtered…

Doesn't really qualify as it did ok as a night fighter. The same could be said for the Me 110. A disaster as a day fighter, but a good night fighter.
As for the Roc in its attack version as the Skua it did ok. Also at the time the Roc was in service as a fighter no-one else had a decent carrier born fighter either – the Japanese being the first with the Zero late in 1940.

Didn't Churchill want to make Ice/Sawdust aircraft carriers.

That would be Pykrete. And the concoction worked. As to it really working as a material for Carriers who really knows? Robert

Russians had some ridiculous projects that either never left paper or experimental stages- like Flying tank.
Most of the German stuff was quite ridiculously over engineered, built with slave labor and then used by people with PHD type knowledge of the weapon. Panther, King Tiger, Ferdinand certainly fit the bill. As I recall Krumlauf was developed to keep Russians from walking up to Ferdinands and lighting them on fire with matches and roll of Pravda. Bullet would apparently shatter in the barrel- turning it in shotgun.

Not sure if I would count it as THE most impractical design but the Sturmtiger would certainly be on my list.

Also on my list would be just about any iteration of the "land battleship" concept. Yes, some of them look cool or at least have a certain odd charm but they just didn't cut it as practical tanks. And technically, this type of vehicle was pre- WW2 but I include it because many saw at least limited combat early in the war. The idea seemed to persist and became fairly widely adopted in spite of its short-comings.

THE most impractical- Maus? Stood next to one at Kubinka…

On the WW2 railway guns, I seem to remember that some at least were intended to be used on (specially laid) sections of track that were on an arc, so you trundled along a little forward or backwards to traverse.

I'm a big fan of the Blacker Bombard for awards like this…. although to be fair the very successful Hedgehog antisubmarine mortar was essentially the same device. link

The Giant Panjandrum always brings a smile to my face….. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panjandrum

I nominate the Fucile Mitragliatore Breda modello 30

It didn't have a carrying handle, it was an awkward, clunky unreliable piece of junk and had a tendency to cook off ammo

The lack of the handle also made changing the hot barrels during sustained fire rather uncomfortable.

(Curiously enough, the designers of the US M60 machine-gun also considered such handles unnecessary, with the poor assistant gunner being instead supplied with an asbestos mitten.)